


the price of hope in silver

by Molly



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC
Genre: M/M, Popslash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Nick was banded, bought and paid for, just like all the others...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	the price of hope in silver

**Author's Note:**

> _Written for without_me, who asked for a Lance/Nick slave AU -- and got all of that, plus Chris. _

Chris hated the leather band knotted around the thickest part of his arm. The ends of it blew free in the steady wind coming off the water, fluttering against his skin. Nick looked into his eyes and read anger there, rising like a dark tide. He shoved a wooden cup at Chris and filled it with kana from his own pitcher, thick and dark and sweet.

He said, "Drink," and Chris drank.

The band around Nick's own arm was soft and unstained, inlaid with bright blue river stones and shimmering quartz. Chris stared at it, grunted, and shoved his cup aside. "You wear that like a prize."

"It is a prize," he said, and watched Chris's mouth curl in contempt.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Nick was banded, bought and paid for, just like all the others; he worked his master's boats and household, just like all the others. When the work was done there was kana, and when the kana was gone there was different work required of him.

This was Nick's life, through all the long, sweet days of his life.

  
   


* * *

  
   


"You've made a friend."

"Mmm." Nick rose to his elbows, staring down into wide green eyes. White sand frosted Lance's cheekbones; Nick brushed it away, and smiled. "Who...?"

Lance caught Nick's fingers. "The new one. The older one, with the black eyes."

"Chris." Nick nodded, and pushed himself up from the sand to sit beside Lance, his arms looped around his knees. "He belongs to the Household on the bluff."

"He seems not to know it."

"I think he knows it too deeply." He tilted his head and looked away, out at the blue horizon. He remembered what that was like, from the time before Lance had bought him; he knew himself, and he knew Chris. Chris, with the black eyes and the torn shirt and battered sandals; Chris, with the yellowed bruises on his back and on his arms.

"The boats will be in soon," Nick said, instead of asking things he wasn't allowed to ask.

"After the Council meets, we sometimes share kana and discuss the events of the day."

"I had heard that," Nick said wryly. Sometimes they shared so much kana they had to be carried home by their banded when the discussions were done.

Lance thumped Nick's knee, grinning. "Your Chris," he said. His hand lingered over Nick's skin, tracing cool, sandy patterns. "He wears his anger on his band."

"I know." Nick sifted sand through his fingers, felt it trickle away. "I did too, once. Before you."

"He won't be allowed to keep both."

Nick nodded, eyes still on the horizon. He knew that, too.

  
   


* * *

  
   


It was over before it began, a rush, a surge of the crowd, a scream cut short with the sound of a cracking whip. Nick said, "No," and looked to Lance, "please--" and Lance said,

"Go."

Nick was tall and broad in the shoulder; he parted the crowd with his body. When he hit empty air he stopped short; he stumbled to his knees, and gagged.

Chris, held by two men each easily twice his size. Blood rained down from a cut above his eye, blood dripped from the cat that rose and fell, rose and fell in his master's hand. It fell again and Chris's head snapped back, his back arched away from the pain that Nick could _feel_, and Nick waited for the next scream, waited with the taste of bile thick in his mouth, tears streaming down his face.

But Chris didn't scream again. Lance's hands clenched tight over Nick's shoulders, held him, held him. Nick couldn't turn away, couldn't fail to witness, but as long as the beating lasted, Chris never screamed again.

  
   


* * *

  
   


The welts were deep, possibly infected. Nick lifted Chris from the dirt when the crowd had dispersed and Chris's master had left him for dead. Here, in the dark, on the table where they had first shared kana, Nick stretched Chris out on his stomach and smoothed healing salve into his wounds.

"What was your price?" Chris asked softly.

Nick's fingers faltered.

"You can't ask that." He fought down the wave of nausea building in his throat and said to himself, _quiet, quiet_ in Lance's voice.

Chris laughed, a jagged slice of sound that hung in the air between them. "I just did."

"You could be sold away North," he said, low and fast, "you could be damaged, Chris, you know you could. Worse than this."

"I won't be sold away."

"Lance says--"

"I have no price."

Nick's eyes widened. His hands knotted into fists against the table. "But. Your mother--"

"My mother is dead, Nick. I wasn't paid for, there was no one to pay. I can't be sold away North, or anywhere else." Chris's eyes closed, and he turned his face away. "Not ever."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Moonlight silvered the sand along the beach and cast a long white trail across the water. Waves rushed in, slid up between Nick's toes, then receded. On the bluff, orange firelight stained every open window.

He wasn't surprised by the cool fingers in his hair, the press of a gentle hand against his neck.

"Nick. Come inside."

Nick didn't trust himself to speak. He was banded; his band was covered in river stones and quartz, but he wore it as Chris wore his, and always would.

Lance's hands moved to Nick's shoulders; they shook, fine tremors against Nick's skin. "Please, Nick. Please come inside." His voice was shaking, too.

Nick didn't move.

  
   


* * *

  
   


The sky lightened; the sun rose and turned the sea to gold. The sand warmed, the breeze freshened; the boats came in across the water, and the day began.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Lance's rooms were cool and dusky, windows shaded with awnings and drifting curtains. Nick closed a door behind him, and another door, and slid between smooth white sheets to press against Lance's side.

"Nick..."

"I'm sorry," Nick said, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry--"

Lance's arms went around him. "I never hurt you," he said, his voice thick, his face pressed into Nick's throat, "I never did that, I would never hurt you, I never," and Nick pulled him close, wrapped around him, held him as close as he could.

"I know," Nick whispered into Lance's ear. He kissed Lance, like a thousand other kisses on a thousand other days between them and said, "I know."

"I would never, Nick," Lance said into his mouth, breath a rapid shudder across Nick's lips.

Nick kissed him again; desperate, Nick kissed his mouth, his cheeks, the tears at the corners of his eyes. "Lance," he said softly, for himself, for the taste of it on his tongue and the sound in his ears. "Lance."

  
   


* * *

  
   


There was a closed door that had never been closed before, a door that opened from the work room into shadows. Lance took him through the door, led him by the hand, lit a single candle in the darkness.

On a low bed, under a thin blanket, Chris slept. His back was bared, but for the bandages Nick had wrapped around him; his arm draped down from the mattress, fingers just touching the cool stone floor.

Nick's eyes widened, and he turned to Lance; his mouth opened, but he didn't know what to ask, or how. There was no leather band around Chris's arm; it lay in pieces across a table beside the bed.

"They hadn't come for him by morning," Lance said quietly. "Sunlight touched him before his master's hand; he is forfeit."

"He has no price--"

A small grin tugged at the corner of Lance's mouth. "How much do you want for him?"

Nick's eyebrows shot up. "Me?"

"You tended him; I will buy him from you." Lance pressed a single silver coin into Nick's open palm; and a soft, silver-studded leather band. He smiled suddenly. "Unless you think you can afford to keep him...?"

Nick closed his hand into a fist. "I don't think so."

He knelt beside the bed; Chris didn't stir as Nick wrapped the band around his arm and knotted it firmly into place. Silver beads brushed against Chris's skin, glittering in the candlelight. He would hate this band, too, that was certain; but he would be safe.

Nick reached for Lance's hand and rose to his feet. "He hates to work," Nick said warningly. "He'll probably be trouble."

"I wonder what that will be like," Lance said dryly.

  
   


* * *

  
   


On the beach, Lance stretched out across the sand, sunlight gleaming golden on his skin. Nick looked at him, the hard planes and curves of him, and twirled the thick silver coin between his fingers.

"You could buy yourself back with that," Lance said quietly, eyes shut tight against the sun.

"I know." Nick flipped it high into the air; it caught the light and shimmered, hung for just a moment; fell.

"Your freedom." Lance pushed up onto one elbow and watched Nick through calm, green eyes. "You could go anywhere."

"I know." Nick tucked it into his pocket. He touched Lance's mouth with his thumb; pressed, and felt Lance gasp against his fingers.

"You could--"

"I know," Nick said gently. "Hush. I'm saving it for something I want."


End file.
